In any one classroom, a teacher can be faced with students who all have their own individual learning preferences, who come from different backgrounds, and who have different priorities and reasons for learning a language. Any group of students can often be of mixed ability with different goals or learning styles. Appropriateness of task can represent a significant challenge in these circumstances. Teachers know from experience that if a language level in a task is too easy, some students are unlikely to improve; if the task is too difficult, some students may simply give up. Similarly, tasks that do not address a student’s interests or learning style may fail to motivate, which is essential to language learning. Time is limited in the classroom, and although teachers are well aware of the need to provide their students with opportunities to practice the language in different and varied contexts, this is sometimes just not feasible given timetabling constraints. As language teachers we understand that to serve the needs of our learners, we need to create an environment that most closely resembles actual use of the target language. In attempting to achieve the “optimal” learning environment, we have a number of resources and tools available. Recording devices, video players, newspapers, and language laboratories all provide different and varied access to content. We can employ a variety of activity types with group work and pair work, collaborative learning and independent learning to engage our learners in communicative language practice. We all try to address the need for personalized learning through the introduction of selfstudy resources designed for independent study. In other words, as language teachers, although we may not have been aware of the term, we have always used a “blend” of teaching approaches in order to provide as rich a learning environment as possible for our learners. Blended learning is therefore not a new concept. What is new is the range of different learning opportunities and environments made possible today through the use of technology to support learning and teaching. What is also new is the “expectation” of our learners to use technology in and out of the classroom as part of the learning process. In the sections that follow, we will consider how blended learning can help achieve the “optimal” language learning environment. We will examine the criteria and factors that will help you choose the appropriate “blend” for your students, and we will also consider the different teacher and learner roles that make for effective blended language learning.
2 Blended Learning